This is only the fourth one that I've taken part in. I received a cash prize in two others (amounting to minimum wage, but being my own boss and making my own hours is important to me.) If I'm being perfectly blunt, the opportunities that exist for \"cheating,\" are really quite surprising to me.
\n\nWould anybody more experienced mind commenting? It's really none of my business, but to be honest, if a sizeable portion of them are fixed, then I should find another plan to support myself.
\n\nPardon my frankness: it's a personality trait. I see nothing wrong with discussing sensitive topics, so long as it doesn't make anybody uncomfortable. I mean no offense. For a little context: one of the other contests I received a prize in decided not to follow their own rules and awarded money to participants that shouldn't have received it (I lost money, not had it given to me.)
", "messages": [ { "id": "232019", "postDate": "10/16/2017 16:13:01", "content": "This is only the fourth one that I've taken part in. I received a cash prize in two others (amounting to minimum wage, but being my own boss and making my own hours is important to me.) If I'm being perfectly blunt, the opportunities that exist for \"cheating,\" are really quite surprising to me.
\n\nWould anybody more experienced mind commenting? It's really none of my business, but to be honest, if a sizeable portion of them are fixed, then I should find another plan to support myself.
\n\nPardon my frankness: it's a personality trait. I see nothing wrong with discussing sensitive topics, so long as it doesn't make anybody uncomfortable. I mean no offense. For a little context: one of the other contests I received a prize in decided not to follow their own rules and awarded money to participants that shouldn't have received it (I lost money, not had it given to me.)
", "rawMarkdown": "This is only the fourth one that I've taken part in. I received a cash prize in two others (amounting to minimum wage, but being my own boss and making my own hours is important to me.) If I'm being perfectly blunt, the opportunities that exist for \"cheating,\" are really quite surprising to me.\n\nWould anybody more experienced mind commenting? It's really none of my business, but to be honest, if a sizeable portion of them are fixed, then I should find another plan to support myself.\n\nPardon my frankness: it's a personality trait. I see nothing wrong with discussing sensitive topics, so long as it doesn't make anybody uncomfortable. I mean no offense. For a little context: one of the other contests I received a prize in decided not to follow their own rules and awarded money to participants that shouldn't have received it (I lost money, not had it given to me.)", "votes": null }, { "id": "232074", "postDate": "10/16/2017 18:59:02", "content": "Hi Murray
\n\nI'm also new to Kaggle and these competitions. I'm pretty sure the \"cheating\" you're referring to is actually leaderboard probing, which is essentially just modifying the submission as often as possible (limit 5 times per day), checking the Kaggle score, and keeping the changes that improve the score. This is a 2 stage competition so the scores on the leaderboard here don't really mean anything and are really just a personal indicator of your progress. The second stage is what's judged for prizes and will use unreleased data. I assume your private score is not known to you until the competition ends to prevent private leaderboard probing.
\n\nI don't think public leaderboard probing is explicitly illegal. But I can only think of a couple reasons why people might be doing it:
\n\nThe only explicitly illegal rule you might be referring to is using or colluding with multiple accounts, which disqualifies the participant.
\n\nAnyway, good luck in the competition! Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!
", "rawMarkdown": "Hi Murray\n\nI'm also new to Kaggle and these competitions. I'm pretty sure the \"cheating\" you're referring to is actually *leaderboard probing*, which is essentially just modifying the submission as often as possible (limit 5 times per day), checking the Kaggle score, and keeping the changes that improve the score. This is a [2 stage competition][1] so the scores on the leaderboard here don't really mean anything and are really just a personal indicator of your progress. The second stage is what's judged for prizes and will use unreleased data. I assume your private score is not known to you until the competition ends to prevent private leaderboard probing.\n\nI don't think public leaderboard probing is *explicitly* illegal. But I can only think of a couple reasons why people might be doing it:\n\n* To increase the size of their training set by knowing the leaderboard labels. These labels are released anyway before stage 2 and can be used to retrain your model later, but I guess there could be an advantage having them earlier (although its really only ~8% more data or something, I don't think it will help much).\n* Maybe to work on their submission in stealth since they can check their progress without needing to submit. The advantage of this is also of questionable benefit.\n\nThe only explicitly illegal rule you might be referring to is using or colluding with multiple accounts, which disqualifies the participant.\n\nAnyway, good luck in the competition! Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!\n\n [1]: https://www.kaggle.com/two-stage-faq", "votes": null }, { "id": "232129", "postDate": "10/16/2017 22:37:24", "content": "I actually didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle. Until earlier, I didn't even realize what format our submissions for this challenge were being requested in.
\n\nThe details of what I'm talking about aren't something that I'm comfortable disclosing without the proof of my statements being -- literally -- the page right next to my statements; but again, I didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle.
", "rawMarkdown": "I actually didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle. Until earlier, I didn't even realize what format our submissions for this challenge were being requested in.\n\nThe details of what I'm talking about aren't something that I'm comfortable disclosing without the proof of my statements being -- literally -- the page right next to my statements; but again, I didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle.", "votes": null } ], "comments": [ { "id": 232074, "author_name": "hackerpoet", "author_url": "", "post_date": "10/16/2017 18:59:02", "content": "Hi Murray
\n\nI'm also new to Kaggle and these competitions. I'm pretty sure the \"cheating\" you're referring to is actually leaderboard probing, which is essentially just modifying the submission as often as possible (limit 5 times per day), checking the Kaggle score, and keeping the changes that improve the score. This is a 2 stage competition so the scores on the leaderboard here don't really mean anything and are really just a personal indicator of your progress. The second stage is what's judged for prizes and will use unreleased data. I assume your private score is not known to you until the competition ends to prevent private leaderboard probing.
\n\nI don't think public leaderboard probing is explicitly illegal. But I can only think of a couple reasons why people might be doing it:
\n\nThe only explicitly illegal rule you might be referring to is using or colluding with multiple accounts, which disqualifies the participant.
\n\nAnyway, good luck in the competition! Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!
", "votes": null, "replies": [] }, { "id": 232129, "author_name": "mmiron", "author_url": "", "post_date": "10/16/2017 22:37:24", "content": "I actually didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle. Until earlier, I didn't even realize what format our submissions for this challenge were being requested in.
\n\nThe details of what I'm talking about aren't something that I'm comfortable disclosing without the proof of my statements being -- literally -- the page right next to my statements; but again, I didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle.
", "votes": null, "replies": [] } ], "raw_markdown_by_id": { "232019": "This is only the fourth one that I've taken part in. I received a cash prize in two others (amounting to minimum wage, but being my own boss and making my own hours is important to me.) If I'm being perfectly blunt, the opportunities that exist for \"cheating,\" are really quite surprising to me.\n\nWould anybody more experienced mind commenting? It's really none of my business, but to be honest, if a sizeable portion of them are fixed, then I should find another plan to support myself.\n\nPardon my frankness: it's a personality trait. I see nothing wrong with discussing sensitive topics, so long as it doesn't make anybody uncomfortable. I mean no offense. For a little context: one of the other contests I received a prize in decided not to follow their own rules and awarded money to participants that shouldn't have received it (I lost money, not had it given to me.)", "232074": "Hi Murray\n\nI'm also new to Kaggle and these competitions. I'm pretty sure the \"cheating\" you're referring to is actually *leaderboard probing*, which is essentially just modifying the submission as often as possible (limit 5 times per day), checking the Kaggle score, and keeping the changes that improve the score. This is a [2 stage competition][1] so the scores on the leaderboard here don't really mean anything and are really just a personal indicator of your progress. The second stage is what's judged for prizes and will use unreleased data. I assume your private score is not known to you until the competition ends to prevent private leaderboard probing.\n\nI don't think public leaderboard probing is *explicitly* illegal. But I can only think of a couple reasons why people might be doing it:\n\n* To increase the size of their training set by knowing the leaderboard labels. These labels are released anyway before stage 2 and can be used to retrain your model later, but I guess there could be an advantage having them earlier (although its really only ~8% more data or something, I don't think it will help much).\n* Maybe to work on their submission in stealth since they can check their progress without needing to submit. The advantage of this is also of questionable benefit.\n\nThe only explicitly illegal rule you might be referring to is using or colluding with multiple accounts, which disqualifies the participant.\n\nAnyway, good luck in the competition! Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong about any of this!\n\n [1]: https://www.kaggle.com/two-stage-faq", "232129": "I actually didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle. Until earlier, I didn't even realize what format our submissions for this challenge were being requested in.\n\nThe details of what I'm talking about aren't something that I'm comfortable disclosing without the proof of my statements being -- literally -- the page right next to my statements; but again, I didn't mean to imply anything at all about Kaggle." }, "source": "meta" }